MY URBAN PIANO Diary 8
Episode 4 dedicated to Prague is coming soon
River of Love
I can call MY URBAN PIANO the adventure of my life. After Luxembourg, Esch and Aarhus, I was in Prague with my team to shoot episode 4 of my journey through twelve European Capitals of Culture, called River of Love. How could you not fall in love with this beautiful city? My time in Prague was simply amazing.
There were three aspects that inspired me to compose River of Love.
- Prague is the city of love. It is not only a beautiful place to be, but also a very romantic one.
- The Vltava (“Moldau”) that flows through Prague and which has been immortalized by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, is one of first things that come to mind when I think of Prague.
- For me, another association is Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, my favorite composer. He had difficulties of being recognized as a composer during his lifetime. But the people of Prague always celebrated Mozart and his music when he visited the city. Odd to say, but yes, that means a lot to me.
These elements shaped my composition River of Love. Points 1 and 2 (love and river) are obvious, aren’t they? But Mozart? Well, the uplifting lightness and joyfulness of his music are also present in my piece I hope. River of Love is a piece full of happiness and gratefulness. And it is with gratitude that I look back on the days I spent in Prague. To make this episode really special, I wanted to:
- Play on the Vltava. And we made it happen. I played the piano on a boat, which was beautifully captured by David Draad and a drone flying above our boat.
- Have my piece played by an orchestra. I arranged River of Love for orchestra and recorded it with none other than the world renowned City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (the walls at Smecky Studios are covered with covers of famous soundtracks that they recorded there, a very impressive collection). The result sounds amazing, I can promise you that.
The team
After our excellent collaboration for episode 3, Joy, I wanted to team up with David Draad once again. David is a brilliant young man, and besides the fantastic work that he delivers, he is just fun to spend time with. Of course, my friend Dan Schank of Videoproductions.lu accompanied me to film all the behind the scenes stuff that is so great to watch after the video shooting. And last but not least, my dear friend and manager Björn Teske from bt’em entertainment management was with us to supervise the whole production. The four of us had a wonderful time together.
We had some stellar support from the Luxembourgish Embassy in Prague. I can’t thank H.E. Ambassador Gérard Philipps and his secretary Alena Velíšková enough for their invaluable help on site. Without Gérard and Alena this video would not have been feasible.
The piano was sponsored by Piáno Starék and designed with much love by mentally disabled people from the Vlašská Institute in Prague. They used organza, a light and transparent fabric to make flowers that symbolize love and water.
Premiere concert in Prague
I can’t wait to show this wonderful new music video to my friends and fans, but it has to wait until Monday, 04.12.2017 when I will play a piano recital with the world premiere of “River of Love” in Prague at Liechtenstein Palace (you can make a reservation via the Luxembourgish Embassy in Prague).
The single and the music video will be published on 05.12.2017. Watch my Facebook page and my YouTube channel.
Concert in Luxembourg
I would like to invite my fans from Luxembourg to my next piano recital on Sunday, 03.12.2017 at the Golf de Luxembourg, where I will also perform pieces from MY URBAN PIANO and show some videos of my project.
On another note, it is with great pleasure that we can now call Esch the official European Capital of Culture in 2022. When we produced Heartland (read more on my blog here) earlier this year, they were still the candidate city, but not officially chosen yet. This changed on November 15th. My heartfelt congratulations to Esch and all the cities that support Esch2022!
Pianist and composer David Ianni from Luxembourg has become well-known for his project MY URBAN PIANO: a series of music videos is produced in different European Capitals of Culture. An original composition is dedicated to each city, performed on an artistically designed piano. Each piano is donated. Join the journey and follow David on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and sign up for his newsletter. Each video plus making of material is published to David’s YouTube channel. For more information, please visit www.davidianni.com.
